


Light

by alecmagnuslwb



Series: Shadowhunters Post Canon Stories [9]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Other, Post-Canon, the follow up to max's journey of self discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25842538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alecmagnuslwb/pseuds/alecmagnuslwb
Summary: Max feels light when he’s with Ash, truly free.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (mentioned), Max Lightwood/Original Non-Binary Character
Series: Shadowhunters Post Canon Stories [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1407787
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Light

**Author's Note:**

> Writer’s month day 11, prompt: Light
> 
> Set after [Identity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530634) which doesn’t necessarily have to be read, but definitely helps for context here.

On his first date with Ash Everstar, Max is a bundle of nerves. Luckily for him Ash seems to find it endlessly endearing squeezing his hand across the tiny table of the hole in the wall Italian place Max has brought them too.

By the second date Max is leagues calmer. He talks freely and easily like he’s known Ash all their lives. From there it’s much the same, things between them get easier and easier, more comfortable as every day passes. Max learns a little bit more about what it means to be non-binary from Ash and Max himself gets very honest about his journey to get where he is now with his sexuality.

And then they talk about the lighter things, the favorite foods and colors and family both blood and found that they’ve built around themselves. Talking to Ash, being with Ash is the easiest thing Max has ever done.

Months pass by in seconds, Max wanting to make every single second he spends with Ash last a little longer, feel a little softer.

They meet each other’s families. Max meets the eccentric mother who raised such a brilliant person like Ash and the little family of found siblings they have; Ash in turn meets the Lightwood-Bane-Lewis-Fray-Garroway clan in stages easing them into it with Magnus, Alec, Summer and their newest additions, a set of infant warlock twins, first.

Ash wins every single member of his ridiculously large family over with their charm and wit and the exceedingly obvious way they adore Max.

A part of Max has always felt heavy. Heavy with the burdens of his family name, of the reputation his siblings have left for him to live up to, of his parents’ expectations, or his people’s expectations. Heavy with expectations of the things he could, would and should achieve that no one else can because of his intelligence, because of who he is. But all that slips away when he’s with Ash.

With Ash he feels light. He feels weightless and burden free when Ash holds his hand, when they fix his glasses that are always slipping down his nose and especially when he falls asleep in their arms.

There’s a lightness in loving someone so openly, so freely. A lightness he’d heard his brother talk about so frequently when waxing poetic about his husband that he can now truly understand.

It’s a lightness that he knows is pure, unadulterated love. He feels it at every turn for Ash and one of these days he might get around to saying it to them out loud.

“Max,” Ash says snapping their fingers before his eyes. Max startles from where he’d been thinking about the very person in front of him. He meets Ash’s eyes and smiles. “There you are,” they say with an answering smile. “You zoned out on me there for a second, penny for your thoughts?”

“You don’t have any pennies,” Max says with a raise of his eyebrows, a distinctly inherited Lightwood move. It’s an ongoing rant of Ash’s about how pennies are a trap because no one ever remembers to use them. Ash rolls their eyes throwing the pencil in their hand in his direction lightly, Max bats it away.

“Shut it,” they grumble as they sit aside the papers in front of them. A stack of field reports that Max’s father has been bugging them to finish and turn in forgotten for the moment. Ash studies him for a moment, seemingly trying to read his mind. If the way Ash is always so in tune with Max is anything to go by he’s starting to think they can, that maybe they’ve gotten Clary to defy the angels once again and make some sort of mind-reading rune for them.

“Are you okay?” they ask reaching a hand across the table their sitting at brushing their thumb across Max’s knuckles.

Max nods his head, flipping Ash’s hand over to run his fingers along their palm lightly. Ash scrunches up their nose at the gesture, a little ticklish in that spot, a cute little look that has Max falling even more in love.

Ash looks gorgeous today, look gorgeous every day really, but today all the same. They’ve been growing out their hair lately the curls flowing down to their shoulders now. The once white streaks in their hair are gone a deep purple now instead. Today’s outfit would make Magnus Bane himself jealous with the way the perfect cut of Ash’s silky black and white short sleeve button up shirt looks almost like liquid flowing down their lean chest and upper arms.

Due to the blistering heat outside they’ve traded in their usual battle-ready pants for a deep navy-blue skirt that cuts just above the knee, bare legs curled up in complicated sitting position in their chair, the laces of their matching converse shoes loose.

They look light and carefree and Max just loves them so, so much.

“I’m fine,” he says truthfully. He’s probably the most fine he’s ever been in his life. “I was just thinking about you.”

Ash smiles unfolding their legs so they can lead forward a little more grabbing Max’s free hand that isn’t playing shapes on their palm.

“Well then by all means, continue,” they smirk with a little twist of their lips. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.” Ash gives one last squeeze to Max’s hand before pulling back, grabbing the papers once again.

Max watches them for a few minutes signing their name to a few more pages, the delicate curve of their signature taking up an insane amount of space at the bottom of each page. Max doesn’t know how they manage to make their short first name take up half the page.

“Hey,” he says after a few minutes of watching them fondly. He closes the book he hasn’t actually been reading at all this entire time. “I love you.”

Ash drops their pen and looks up. For a brief blindingly terrifying moment they don’t say a thing. Max is ready to backtrack if need be, but he really, really doesn’t want to have to.

Then a bright smile crosses their face and they bit their lip shyly. Max wants to kiss them so bad and he can so he does. He lifts himself up and over the table kissing Ash for just a few seconds, difficult to maintain with how much they’re smiling.

Max settles back on his side of the table with a smile.

“I love you too,” Ash says running their fingers over their lips. “And I absolutely meant what I said when I told you that you should get back to thinking about me, it clearly yields excellent results.”

Max laughs as Ash reaches out brushing their fingers along his jaw before turning back to the stack of papers at hand.

After a few more minutes of just watching Max picks back up his book, intent on actually reading it this time, and Ash starts humming some very specific sounding tune under their breath. Max marvels at the monumental moment that’s just happened that came so easily like they’ve both just been saying it for years to each other.

He cracks open the book in his hands and smiles shaking his head, feeling even lighter than before.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [alecmagnuslwb](https://alecmagnuslwb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
